February 2012
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This is the theme song for my jazz combo, The...
January 2012
50 posts
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“A few anti-ageing zealots already subsist on near-starvation diets, but Dr...”
– http://www.economist.com/node/21543129
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Pale old Finucane pulled his horses, who pulled his plow, all so slowly going over a stoney field under grey skies.
Every time he would pass the window of Widow Jones — the newly widowed Widow Jones, it must be noted — he’d pause a moment to listen to her sobbing within, think for a moment and start again.
It was on the morning of the third day of her mourning that he abandoned his work,...
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Friday night, after working a double shift at the diner, Audrey walked in the trailer door, tossed her keys on the table and sank into the sofa, not even stopping to turn on the lights.
After a few minutes, she reached over and lifted from the coffee table a cheap souvenir snow globe that a lover had given her many years before. Moonlight shined in through the open window, illuminating the...
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Freckles →
The most disturbing paragraph of non-fiction I’ve read this month:
But Freckles is a long way from normal. She is an extraordinary creation, an animal that could not have existed at any point in history before the 21st century. She is all goat, but she has something extra in every one of her cells: Freckles is also part spider.
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“The process of writing has something infinite about it. Even though it is...”
– Elias Canetti
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Leonard Cohen Interview →
When asked if he works out ideas by writing songs:
“I think you work out something. I wouldn’t call them ideas. I think ideas are what you want to get rid of. I don’t really like songs with ideas. They tend to become slogans. They tend to be on the right side of things: ecology or vegetarianism or antiwar. All these are wonderful ideas but I like to work on a song until those...
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“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken...”
– Anton Chekhov
The Januariad 2012
portersnotebook:
The Januariad is a fiction project in which several somewhat foolhardy writers produce new stories every weekday in January. The pieces must be complete, readable and begun and finished during the 24-hour period of that day.
The project will, at the close of today, have just passed its halfway mark.
Tumblr is awash in fantastic writers. I’d like to introduce those of you out...
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“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”
– Ray Bradbury
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“I try to leave out the parts that people skip.”
– Elmore Leonard
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“The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being...”
– Vladimir Nabakov
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“The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.”
– Linus Pauling
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The Lost Heifer
When the black herds of the rain were grazing, In the gap of the pure cold wind And the watery hazes of the hazel Brought her into my mind, I thought of the last honey by the water That no hive can find.
Brightness was drenching through the branches When she wandered again, Turning sliver out of dark grasses Where the skylark had lain, And her voice coming softly over the meadow Was the...
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“Quantity produces quality. If you only write a few things, you’re doomed.”
– Ray Bradbury
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“If you write one story, it may be bad; if you write a hundred, you have the odds...”
– Edgar Rice Burroughs
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“Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write,...”
– Graham Greene
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“At the risk of appearing foolish, a writer sometimes needs to be able to just...”
– Raymond Carver
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Party Politics
When they smashed his door, stuffed him in a sack, dragged him down the stairs, beat the sack with a broom handle, tossed him in the back of a car, drove him to an undisclosed location, then interrogated him under hot lights for hours, beat him again, locked him a cell with nothing but a hole in the floor for a toilet, bagged his head, re-tied his hands, beat him again, waterboarded him daily and...
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“Relationship Insurance Division, this is Todd. May I help you?”
“Yes. I’d like to file a claim, please.”
“Name and policy number?”
“Bob Wilting, policy number 49383847464-N.”
“Ah, yes, standard coverage for Errors & Omissions. What seems to be the trouble, Mr Wilting?”
“Well, you see, it’s just… well, the...
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“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”
– Jack London
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